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Really excellent that you’re doing [detailed] research before starting to drop ship. I made the mistake of just diving in headfirst when I started, and that’s likely why I’m still not out of my apartment.

As to your question, I’d definitely skew toward domestic as much as possible. There’re a few reasons for this-

● Any return of goods from a foreign supplier will be your responsibility to receive and ship back. Any domestic returns can be handed directly off to the drop shipper, which is often either the manufacturer or the brand-holder.

● It’s more expensive to import than to simply trade across state lines. Imports involve higher shipping fees, duties, more ad valorem taxes, and occasional tariffs. You can imagine how much those fees will eat into your profit.

● Very little chance of communications made frustrating by a language barrier. Sure, it’s tough for a guy in New York City and a guy from Evergreen, AL to understand each other at times, the issue isn’t quite as pronounced as either one of them attempting to understand a dude in Shanghai.

On the other hand, I won’t entirely rule out an overseas source, either. That would just be shooting myself in the foot.

● You want to be as close to the source of the product as possible. Each link in the supply chain adds its own 2 bits to the original wholesale price, and that means less profit for j00. It’s possible that the manufacturer in Shanghai can give you a better price, even with duty and the like, than the third-link source in Evergreen.

● Sometimes you find a deal too good to pass up, and those deals are often from dealers you’d find inconvenient otherwise. If your calculations show you’re still making a profit from an overseas deal, I’d definitely say go for it. Part of the reason behind these deals is specifically to court foreign customers (you).

There are no real blanket statements that can be safely made in this topic (except maybe that one). Sure, there’s some definite fundamental advantages to staying domestic, but there’s some definite opportunities to be had with an overseas partnership. Just go back to basics and make a profit vs. risk analysis on a case-by-case basis with each supplier, and take profit where you can get it.